Eye of Justice
"You did a fine job dirtying your hands for the disguise, but the state of your boots clearly shows that you have never so much as walked through a grain field. Now tell me, my lord, what is that you're really here to see me about?" Name: Eye of Justice (Merrus Hume) Age: 28 Type: Solar Caste: Twilight Anima: Iridescent Purple Anima Banner: A purple and gold eye Highest Virtue: Conviction Description: Merrus can usually be seen wearing a tightly-fitted purple silk shirt, trousers, and practical shoes. In the event that he has time to prepare for combat, he wears a simple buff jacket with a very high collar, though he will also wear it if it is very cold. Bio: The tale of the Eye of Justice comes in two parts: what happened to his incarnation during the First Age, and the story of his unusually similar current incarnation. All information from the First Age incarnation is OOC. His backstory is also intricately connected to that of his bonded Lunar, The Silver Shepherd, and should not be considered complete without it. The First Age: In the First Age, near the end of the reign of the Solars, there was one Solar called The Yovarian Judge-Prince. He ruled over the relatively small city-state of Yovar, on the southern coast of the Blessed Isle. In the beginning, his rule was a just one, prospering under the hard but fair set of legal codes that he set down. He spent much of his time listening to the concerns of the people and adjudicating the various legal disputes that would arise. After all, who better to interpret the laws of the land than the one who made them in the first place? Unfortunately, his rule, like that of so many Solars, began to deteriorate as the Great Curse took its toll. He slowly became less interested in civil disputes and turned his attention toward the criminal section. He began to detest criminals, seeing them as a stain on his city. Why would they turn against the laws so obviously intended to help them? Growing increasingly dissatisfied with the work of his police forces, he began a personal crusade against crime. It evolved from leading teams against high-profile criminals, to conducting raids and arrests on his own, then all the way to firing many "incompetent" police in favor of his own work. As he spent more and more time on his crusade, he had less and less time to devote to actually running the government. He instead began appointing subordinates and lackeys to perform those tasks instead, without much regard to whether they could adequately fulfill them. The quality of leadership steadily declined, causing various problems, which went on to cause increased crime rates, which caused The Prince to focus more on catching criminals, and so on in an ever-worsening cycle. Eventually The Prince was sentencing criminals as he caught them, only occasionally bringing them to an actual court. His Lunar, Wu Zhein, was practically all that was left of his conscience, having to constantly remind him that criminals were still people. Amidst all of this were the machinations of Moriarty, a Sidereal Exalt near the top of The Prince's government. As the levels of corruption steadily rose within The Prince's government, he fed his own ambition more and more. He provided services to the more profitable sections of the city's underbelly, mostly illegal trade and sale. Whenever the police or The Prince caught up to them, he would engineer disappearances or releases, for a price. He eventually gained connections to the most powerful criminal enterprises in the area, all while maintaining his public profile. In this way, tales of The Prince's rabid punishments for crime spread amongst the populace, while the most successful criminals practiced their trade with near impunity. As time passed, the people of Yovar became more and more disenchanted with The Prince, and the faint mutterings of rebellion began. Moriarty caught wind of these mutterings, and encouraged them. By this point, the Sidereals had decided on their plan of action against the Solars. He planned to assault The Prince with an army of his own people, led by the Dragon-Blooded. A scant few months before the Usurpation, a large, daring force of pirates came from the West to raid the city. The Prince learned of the assault before they arrived, but initially planned to simply leave them to the city's standing forces. Wu Zhein, more conscious of the people's opinion of him, suggested that he personally lead the city's defenses, to remind them of their leader's benevolence. He agreed, and brought his vast intellect to bear against the raiders, sending them into a rout without a single casualty among the city's forces. For a short time, his popularity rose once again. Moriarty saw this, and began to fear for his plans, which required the people to revolt along with the Dragon-Blooded. He quickly began a new series of rumors, blaming The Prince himself for the raiders' attack. How else could such a group make it all the way to the Blessed Isle? He began convincing people that the entire event was engineered purely to make him look better. As the people once again began to turn against The Prince, he furiously began looking for the source of these rumors. Fortunately for him, Moriarty's haste gave him a vulnerability. Over the course of months, The Prince was able to follow a trail of evidence back to Moriarty - but just as he moved to act on it, the Usurpation began. Determined to bring Moriarty to justice, he and Wu Zhein rushed back to the grand tower in the center of the city, with an army on their heels. Wu Zhein was forced to stayed back, fighting off the army while The Prince confronted Moriarty at the tower's peak. As The Prince worked to wring a confession out of him, Moriarty wormed his way through The Prince's mental defenses. He claimed that the revolt was little more than a pleasing distraction to him; that he enjoyed their game of cat and mouse, and all he really wanted was to continue it. He further pointed out Wu Zhein's situation, fighting off the army at the tower's base. He fought bravely, but the size of the army combined with his hesitation to harm the mortals he watched over would eventually prove to be his death... Unless he didn't need to protect The Prince anymore. Maybe if The Prince was dead. The populace was already rebelling against him, so he had already lost. He really should just end it, and try again in his next reincarnation. Moriarty assured him that he looked forward to the continuation of this great game. This gave The Prince pause. Not because of the effectiveness of Moriarty's arguments; though they were somewhat persuasive, something else about them caught The Prince's attention. One of the simplest abilities he possessed was to tell when someone was lying, and Moriarty was lying about his reincarnation. The only way that was possible was if he was, in fact, not going to reincarnate at all. Following this trail of logic, in combination with the sheer number of Dragon-Blooded now arrayed against him, led to only one conclusion: this was only one part of a Creation-wide coup. As he revealed this realization, Moriarty became enraged. He had been on the brink of besting The Prince, but now that his full plans were exposed, the playing field was even. He attacked with all the might he could muster, but did not anticipate The Prince's next move. Moriarty's words might have been coldhearted and manipulative, but most of it was correct. Wu Zhein was indeed starting to falter against the press of combat, and a prolonged duel atop the enormous tower would most likely take too long to keep him from being overwhelmed and killed. The Prince, in his last moment of compassion, decided that he valued the life of Wu Zhein above his own. He took Moriarty to the edge of the tower, and plummeted off together. Moriarty was no weakling, though. He managed to separate himself from The Prince, grabbing on to a passing ledge. As the Prince continued his fall, he pulled up the last of his reserves and cursed Moriarty with a compulsion designed to punish oathbreakers and traitors: Moriarty was never to be able to lie again. He yelled for Wu Zhein to flee just before he struck the ground. The Yovarian Judge-Prince was dead, and Moriarty had won, albeit with an incomplete victory. After the Usurpation, Moriarty joined the other Sidereals in obscurity, manipulating the people of Creation from behind the veil. However, he was not immune to the ravages of time. Only a few years before the Scarlet Empress's disappearance, he found himself dying of old age. Rather than allow his mind to completely pass on, he hatched a plan with his most trusted ally. They would manipulate the process used to grant new Sidereals the knowledge they required, and instead use it to implant Moriarty's own memories in a fresh new Sidereal body. When they did so, however, something went wrong. The boy's existing personality clashed with the implanted one. Moriarty is now in complete control, but his mind is warped and deranged, his actions unpredictable, and his goals indecipherable. The Time of Tumult: Merrus Hume has always been one of the smartest people he knows. To be more precise, he believes himself to be the smartest person he knows, and he is not afraid to say so. His Exaltation has only confirmed his feelings of superiority. Merrus is the child of a highly successful family of Guild merchants in the city-state of Nathir. Their wealth allowed them to give him an extensive education, giving him a wide background of knowledge. During the later years of his schooling, his exceptionally sharp mind and memory allowed him to succeed in his studies without much investment, allowing him more time to perfect his "methods of deduction." It was also during this time that he picked up a liking for solving mysteries and crimes, along with a liking for tobacco and the occasional use of cocaine. In the following years, he began to do work as a consultant, often hired to find missing people, assist the local civic forces in difficult cases, or participate in other, stranger activities. It was during one of these that he Exalted. He was hired to find a missing child, who turned out to have been taken by slavers. There were only hours to find her before the slavers left, reducing the chance of finding her to unacceptably low levels. Just as he began to think that he would not be able to follow the trail, a vision of the Unconquered Sun appeared to him, granting him the power he needed to find even the tiniest of details. After the swift conclusion of that case, he found himself able to solve cases faster and faster. His newfound intellectual power wasn't completely a good thing in his mind, as now cases that would have entertained him for days on end could now be solved without any serious mental effort. This, combined with increased suspicion of his deductive prowess, prompted him to leave Nathir for more interesting diversions. He began traveling throughout the Hundred Kingdoms, as well as other nearby parts of the Confederacy of Rivers, in search of more interesting distractions. One such distraction was the construction of his "Irregular Network." In every town he spent more than a few days in, he made an effort to supply some of the least fortunate mortals with bribes, in exchange for promises of future information. Over time, he accumulated a network that covered a fair portion of the Hundred Kingdoms, which he can access from just about any town he wishes. Unfortunately for him, his lack of reputation outside of Nathir meant that he rarely got paid enough to fund the moderately luxurious lifestyle he was used to. Unwilling to give up such luxuries, he instead took up monthly correspondence with his older brother, Myton. Myton, a man almost as intelligent as Merrus before his Exaltation (though without anywhere near the ambition), ran the family's merchant business. After some negotiation, Myton agreed to send Merrus a fairly large allowance in exchange for various forms of advice and assistance. Possibly the most notable event of Merrus' recent history is his encounter with Jon Wong Su. It began with Merrus hearing talk of a "gigantic hound" terrorizing a nearby town. He initially dismissed it as typical wild animal troubles, until it was mentioned that the "hound" could disguise itself in the shape of a man. It was then that Merrus deduced that it was most likely another Anathema, one of the Lunar Exalted. He had so far not met any other Celestial Exalted, and he was curious to do so. In addition, he reasoned that the Wyld Hunt would soon come down - an adversary that would be an accomplishment to outwit. So there began a race between Merrus, the Wyld Hunt, and as he would discover when he neared his target, another group of Lunars moving to rescue the new one. Through the virtue of his mind, Merrus was the first one to find and recognize the quarry: Jon Wong Su, a compassionate doctor blessed with the might of the Full Moon. It was not long afterward that they were discovered by the Lunar rescue team. After a tense greeting when the collected Lunars recognized Merrus for what he was, they agreed to leave the area together to escape the rapidly closing Wyld Hunt. The group fled to the East, pursued by the Hunt, forced onto unfamiliar paths. As they did, Merrus found Jon to become more and more attached to him, frequently amazed by his mental prowess. To his surprise, he found himself becoming attached in return. He became so attached, in fact, that when the Hunt unexpectedly caught up to them, he personally faced down the leader of the Hunt in order to save Jon. After a brief exchange, the hunt's leader seemed to suddenly become overjoyed to see him, saying something about fortuitous strands of Fate. The assembled Exalts managed to beat off the Hunt, but Merrus has since harbored the suspicion that the leader allowed him to escape. After that, they managed to outpace their pursuers, losing them entirely. The remainder of the journey was subsequently very boring for Merrus, but Jon's insistence kept him traveling with the group. One of his few distractions was observing the surrounding landscape and drawing conclusions about it, which mostly resulted in him being placed ahead as the group's scout. One day, it also resulted in him spotting an unusual reflection from the peak of a nearby mountain. Eager for an adventure, he immediately left to investigate it, dragging Jon along. It turned out to be a manse, forgotten by the rest of the world due to its remote location and still-active defenses. After slipping past said defenses, Merrus claimed the manse and its hearthstone, an intriguing stone that allowed him to listen to the thoughts of those around him if he wished. He also found an amulet perfectly fitted for the hearthstone, and an Artifact boomerang that was enchanted to always return the the wielder's grasp. After looting the manse and leaving it to its time-proven devices, Merrus and Jon proceeded with the Lunar group to meet with rest of the Silver Pact. After finding out a great deal about Lunar society, he immediately began feeling bored again, and his low reserves of tobacco were doing nothing to help the situation. As soon as he could convince Jon to leave, they did so, making the long journey back to civilization. Since then, the pair have traveled around the Hundred Kingdoms, finding issues to apply themselves to. Jon has done his best to rid Merrus of his addictions, mostly with success in regards to cocaine (though he still chews coca leaves and he keeps a secreted vial of 7% cocaine solution for "emergencies"), but without nearly as much in regard to tobacco. Several times they have encountered the apparent agents of the mysterious Hunt leader, but for some reason they have not come into direct conflict - yet. - - - - Back to Characters - - - -